Follows in the same light as the native-themed Tabu
(1931)
by Murnau,
but can't touch its accomplishment with a ten-foot
pole. It's based on
a creaky old play by Richard Walton Tally and is
written by Leonard
Praskins
and Wells Root. Director King Vidor ("The Big
Parade"/"The Crowd"/"H.M.
Pulham, Esq.") updates the tale and takes advantage of
the freedom
allowed
in the pre-Code days to tell his forbidden love story
with full sexual
energy. Vidor, in an uneven effort, gets a flavorful
take on the
colorful
natives on an idyllic South Sea island, but the
romantic story between
a white tourist yachtsman, Johnny Baker (Joel McCrea),
and a colored
native
princess, Luana (Dolores Del Rio), remains
stilted.

Vidor has a good eye for local scenery and action
scenes on
a South
Seas volcanic island visited by an American yacht.
Young sailor Johnny
is attacked by a shark and rescued by the chief's hot
daughter Luana.
Dazzled
by her good looks and joyous attitude, Johnny courts
her. But she's
tabu,
as according to native custom she's reserved for
island royalty. Though
warned by the witch doctor (Agostino Borgato), Johnny
ignores his
threats.
When the yacht takes off to visit other islands, the
irrational Johnny
stays on the island to make it with Luana. The plan is
for the yacht in
a few weeks to return and pick him up.

Warning: spoiler in the next
paragraph.

While the couple frolic in the bushes, her father
has his
tribesmen
snatch her away to marry a neighbor prince. Johnny
follows her to the
reception
and snatches her away from the groom, and takes her to
another island
where
he talks about taking her to San Francisco and she
talks about the
native
superstition regarding the volcano. She tells him that
the legend has
it
when the volcano Pele erupts, she must be fed to it in
a ritualized
sacrifice
so as to abate its hunger. When the volcano begins to
erupt, the
natives
come for her. When Johnny tries to interfere, the
tribesmen pierce him
with a poison arrow. Both Johnny and Luana are tied to
a stake and
prepared
to die, but Johnny's shipmates return and rescue both.
Luana believes
Johnny
will die from a fever unless she goes through with the
sacrifice, and
thereby
jumps ship and jumps into the flaming volcano.

Vidor revels in sequences with a shark attack, a
giant
whirlpool,
a shirtless McCrea, Americans debating whether or not
to eat poi, hula
dancers (with dances devised by Busby Berkeley), the
rescue of a
would-be
bride in a flaming ring and a volcano in eruption. The
photography is
exotic,
but the story is for the birds.